Polymer Materials for the Heat Recovery

Many of the processes in the industry, agriculture and microscale systems are associated with the waste heat generation, which often may be a menace or lower the efficiency of the processes. The thermoelectric cooling is becoming increasingly popular and gives the possibility to convert waste heat into electricity. The current thermoelectric cooling solutions are based on alloy materials. However, the new technologies pay attention to the environment burden, moreover the regulations of the production and recycling are becoming more and more restrictive. Conducting polymers are thermoelectrically active at low temperatures, cheap and environmentally safe. In this paper authors discuss the possibility of the application of conducting polymers for the heat recovery. Due to the operating temperature range and different nature of the waste heat sources, polymers might be an interesting solution and a complement for alloy-based thermoelectric materials. The character and nature of the formation of waste heat sources and conventional technologies of its recovery are also described in this paper. Moreover the advantages of thermoelectric cooling with the use of polymers are presented and two materials based on polyaniline are proposed.